18 January 2012
The bad judgment exercised by a handful of Marines should be treated like an ND: a Negligent Discharge. In the US military, if you “accidentally” pull the trigger and launch an unplanned bullet downrange, you should not even bother trying to explain away the “accident.” If that bullet kills someone, it’s called Negligent Homicide. The bullet did not fire accidentally; it was fired negligently. Bottom line.
This should be treated like a negligent discharge of the penis, and of the video camera, and then of common sense. What a dumb thing to do. And super dumb to video tape it. And ultra-dumb to then let the video make it to the Internet.
Those few Marines should be busted, but they don’t deserve prison. They made a big-league mess up, but they did not commit murder. They were young men in combat who committed stupid. But how many of us who have reached the age of 30 cannot look back and find at least a dozen instances of major league stupidity that we committed? Most of us are lucky that our dumbness did not make it to the Internet.
And that commander… Sheesh. He should be busted for all the distraction this has brought.
Punish them, but do not tar them. Do not send them to prison.
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/michaelyon-online/~3/aYndtZbCU48/marine-urination-video-some-thoughts.htm
Posted
Jan 17 2012, 07:31 PM
by
Michael Yon - Online Magazine